Cryptocurrencies that Could Become the Next Bitcoin

February 8, 2018

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin has continued to attract headlines and market interest. Bitcoin was the fastest-growing asset in the world last year, and has tremendously maintained its incredible record since the start of the year 2018. It has consistently found itself amidst enormous success, along with other majors like Ethereum, Ripple, etc. But there are many lesser known cryptocurrencies that have been poised to reach greater heights, like Bitcoin.

There is a huge amount of money that could potentially be made with these cryptocurrencies, though it remains relatively uncommon to actually purchase anything with them. They have been likened to the ‘penny stocks’ of the cryptocurrency world – and the right one could be due for a meteoric rise. These virtual currencies include:

Litecoin (LTC)

Litecoin is a cryptocurrency, which was created in 2011 as a lightweight alternative to Bitcoin. The key difference between them is: Litecoin’s mining is governed by the Scrypt algorithm, as opposed to Bitcoin’s SHA 256.

Since its creation, Litecoin has been very popular, with an almost constant presence in the top 5 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. It boasts faster transactions, and at a lower cost compared to Bitcoin, which are certainly favorable points when it comes to Litecoin’s potential growth.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

Bitcoin Cash is a hard fork of the cryprocurrency, Bitcoin. It was created in August, 2017. Bitcoin Cash differs from the original in that it increases the block size from 1 Mb to 8 MB. It also removes Segregated Witness (SegWit), a proposed code adjustment designed to free up block space by removing certain parts of the transaction.

The goal of Bitcoin Cash is to increase the number of transactions that can be processed, and its creators view it as the next step in terms of the evolution of virtual currencies.

Vertcoin (VTC)

Vertcoin claims to be the people’s coin and is designed to support decentralized mining. Launched in 2014, Vertcoin is a Bitcoin-like blockchain currency with additional features such as Stealth Address technology and ASIC resistant Proof-of-work. Stealth Address is a new technology for providing privacy on the public ledger.

Vertcoin uses the Lightning Network for instant blockchain transactions. Additionally, the Lightning Network has the ‘Atomic Cross-Chain’ which allows Vertcoin to be exchanged directly into either Bitcoin or Litecoin, decentralizing the exchanges.

Cardano

Cardano is a technology platform that runs the ADA cryptocurrency. It was launched in 2017 and is considered a third generation cryptocurrency. Founded by Charles Hoskinson, a co-founder of Ethereum, Cardano takes a scientific approach to cryptocurrency being based on published academic papers, with academic institutions overseeing its growth and evolutions. It is the first blockchain platform to evolve out of a scientific philosophy and a research-first driven approach.

Cardano is an ambitious project that seeks to address the shortcomings of Ethereum and other older cryptocurrencies. It features the Ouroboros ‘Proof of Stake’ (PoS) method for faster transactions, which is laudably energy-efficient. It is also considered highly secure, as it’s based on a layered architecture.